s of
Dumbartonshire to the lady who seemed so kind, insomuch that there was
scarce a glen in the neighbouring hills to which they did not introduce
her.

Upon one of these excursions, while Reuben was otherwise employed, David
alone acted as Lady Staunton's guide, and promised to show her a cascade
in the hills, grander and higher than any they had yet visited. It was a
walk of five long miles, and over rough ground, varied, however, and
cheered, by mountain views, and peeps now of the firth and its islands,
now of distant lakes, now of rocks and precipices. The scene itself, too,
when they reached it, amply rewarded the labour of the walk. A single
shoot carried a considerable stream over the face of a black rock, which
contrasted strongly in colour with the white foam of the cascade, and, at
the depth of about twenty feet, another rock intercepted the view of the
bottom of the fall. The water, wheeling out far beneath, swept round the
crag, which thus bounded their view, and tumbled down the rocky glen in a
torrent of foam. Those who love nature always desire to penetrate into
its utmost recesses, and Lady Staunton asked David whether there was not
some mode of gaining a view of the abyss at the foot of the fall. He said
that he knew a station on a shelf on the farther side of the intercepting
rock, from which the whole waterfall was visible, but that the road to it
was steep and slippery and dangerous. Bent, however, on gratifying her
curiosity, she desired him to lead the way; and accordingly he did so
over crag and stone, anxiously pointing out to her the resting-places
where she ought to step, for their mode of advancing soon ceased to be
walking, and became scrambling.

In this manner, clinging like sea-birds to the face of the rock, they
were enabled at length to turn round it, and came full in front of the
fall, which here had a most tremendous aspect, boiling, roaring, and
thundering with unceasing din, into a black cauldron, a hundred feet at
least below them, which resembled the crater of a volcano. The noise, the
dashing of the waters, which gave an unsteady appearance to all around
them, the trembling even of the huge crag on which they stood, the
precariousness of their footing, for there was scarce room for them to
stand on the shelf of rock which they had thus attained, had so powerful
an effect on the senses and imagination of Lady Staunton, that she called
out to David she was falling, and would in f